Tracing your route on a GIF of a map with the latest version of ProShow Gold(Version 4.0.2549)

My wife and I recently got back from a trip to Turkey. I made a video of our trip. In the video, each leg of the journey was illustrated with an animated map that I traced the route on. ProShow Gold does not have an animated map tracing feature like Corel's VideoStudio X2.

However, the problem is easily remedied at no cost by creating an animated GIF using GIMP, the FREE image manipulation program.

2. Download a GIF of a map that you want to trace your route on. Click on the image, right click, Save Picture As, navigate to the directory on your HD that you want to save the GIF to and click OK.3. Fire up GIMP.4. Click on File, Open, navigate to the directory where your map gif is and click OK.5. Click on Layer, New Layer, and OK. We going to create a new layer, trace a tiny segment of our route on it. 6. Click on the Paintbrush tool. Move the paintbrush to your starting point on the map. Trace a tiny segment of your route say 1/16th of an inch and stop. 7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 over and over creating layers and tracing a tiny part of your route until you reach your ending point. Each layer is a frame in your animation. 8. Save your GIF under a different name from the original map. You may want to use the original map to show another segment. Click File, Save As9. A window will appear entitled Save Image. Click on Save10. Another window will appear entitled Export File. Click on the button Save As Animation, Click on Export.11. Another window will appear entitled Save As GIF. You can leave the options as is or play with them. Click on OK to save your animated GIF. 12. Fire up ProShow Gold, navigate to the directory where your animated GIF is stored. Click on the GIF file and ProShow should immediately show the animation.

Looking at Paint.net's forum, it appears that you need an additional piece of software like movie maker to produce an animated GIF. A 2006 post says you create separate GIFs using Paint.net for each frame of animation and then combine them using animation software into an animated GIF.

I'm not a GIMP maven, in fact this is the first time I ever used GIMP. It seems to me GIMP is easier to use to create a simple moving map trace since GIMP has an option to combine multiple layers into an animated GIF automatically whereas Paint.net does not have this option.

I found a Paint.net tutorial on uTube for animating but unfortunately it was in Portuguese. Even the screen labels were in Portuguese.

After watching Gavin Hoey's video, I wouldn't describe this as "way easier" but "way neater" and best of all, the technique uses ProShow Gold's layers without third party software. Very clever! Thanks for contributing.

Everyone . . . I may have been a little premature in suggesting that Paint.Net could be used to make the route line effect as described by Alan. I thought the desire was to create a series of pictures that could be combined within ProShow Gold but I now understand what the desired effect is.

I must also agree with Anita that Gavin Hoey's method to create a moving line on a map is probably one of the easiest methods I have seen

Hi all,Hope this hasn't been covered before, but I found the easiest way to trace a route on a map in Proshow is to edit your map in Photoshop, Paint, or whatever program you prefer. Trace the route using a suitable size brush & color, on the map & save it under another name. Then add the original map without markings & the new map with the route markings next. Choose a wipe transition between the 2 maps that will expose the route in the direction that you want it to go. Increase the timing of the transition to slow down the speed of the line as it is exposed.(the wipe transition leaves the original image on screen while exposing the next image)

The method described by Barry is very easy and most suitable for routes which have a distinct direction say going from North to South (Swipe top to bottom). A problem crops up when the route changes laterally, say East. This can be solved simply my repeating the same procedure with the swipe going slowly Left to right.

After watching Gavin Hoey's video, I wouldn't describe this as "way easier" but "way neater" and best of all, the technique uses ProShow Gold's layers without third party software. Very clever! Thanks for contributing.

--Alan

Anything Gavin Hoey does is way neat! I have concluded that he is just an expert with editing type software. Must be that almost anything that has layers and such is similar enough that once you get it really good, like Photoshop, that Proshow Gold would be a snap too. I am a PSG newbie, and Photoshop is way out of my league!